Hand Technique Course – Lesson One – Grip
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Very excited to bring this to the website. With new camera angles and a lot more detail, we’re relaunching the hand technique course. I don’t know of anything else on the internet that goes into this kind of detail regarding hand technique. I’m aiming to put all the information I’ve gathered from my lessons with Thomas Lang, Dave Weckl and Virgil Donati and through my own studies into one definitive course.
I’ve never had a student say that they haven’t benefited hugely from following these steps regarding grip and use of the wrist. That’s what we’re covering in this first lesson and I really hope it helps you.
If you have any questions, please email or comment underneath the video!
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Best one yet Louie! Great stuff. Perfect timing as I’m studying this type of stuff with Darryn Farrugia at the moment. The comments about foundation, tension and especially the one from Weckl re: the fingers at the back of the hand are worth the price of admission alone!!
One question (not entirely related to this topic) is I notice the stick marks on your floor toms. Like me you don’t seem to making it to the middle (or thereabouts) of the drum every time. Do you have anything specifically to work on this? I’m working on trying to get it more consistent in terms of sound with each stroke.
New camera angles definitely help too.
Looking forward to more of this. Keep up the great work mate.
Cheers from Oz
Awesome, thanks! Glad you liked the lesson. It was a little long but I think it’s important to be detailed regarding this particular lesson.
As for hitting the drums in the middle – there’s nothing specific to suggest to work on. Most of the time, when it’s simpler or slower figures, I will be hitting the middle of the drum most of the time. The marks you can see on the outer parts of the head are most likely from faster things I played around the toms where it’s much harder to be perfectly accurate and also not quite as important. If you’re doing something slow-ish or bold where the tom note is sticking out then you need that full sound and you’ll soon know if you’re not being accurate as the sound for that type of figure will be thin and nasty if you hit the outside of the drum. But for flurries around the toms, the force of each stroke is going to be much less because of the speed.
Any of the endurance exercises on the site that involve moving around the drums will be good for helping with accuracy as well as just being concious of looking at each drum when you play it. A lot of drummers don’t ‘look where they play’ and it’s important to do that when what you’re playing gets more complex.
Hope that helps!